Dog Sitter

On the way to the dog sitter.

Please ignore the dog hair on my shirt.

North Country Girl

I wonder if she still remembers me at all?

Flash: Humanity not the center of the universe

News Flash: Humanity is not the center of the universe.

Evidence for massive and abrupt iceberg calving in Antarctica dating back 19,000 to 9,000 years ago is based on an analysis of new, long deep sea sediment cores extracted from the region between the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula.  

 The study in Nature documents that the Antarctic ice sheet is unstable and can abruptly reorganize Southern Hemisphere climate and cause rapid global sea level rise.

 What brought about such huge ice-sheet collapses in Antarctica back then, since there was no Anthropocene to implicate? For that, the researchers had to fall back on climate modeling experiments.

This is not to say that global warming is not real, only that there are other real things at work in the universe.

This is not to say that we should not be aware, only that it is not the cause of every crisis.

That is not even to say that we should not act, only that it would be foolish to think that acting to maintain stasis is the only or even the most efficient way forward.

Contrast Effect

Two studies caught by eye recently, each studying how one gender rates the attractiveness of the other.

How does one sign up for these kinds of studies anyway?

So it appears as if men's assessment of what they find attractive in women changes depending upon the season and that women are more likely to find beards attractive when they are more rare and less attractive the more popular they become.

Both are examples of the contrast effect.  In short, we are attracted to the novel and the new.  We want what no one else has and we discount the common.

One example of this effect at work is the long line of dog breeds destroyed by fashion.

A small niche breed, with a small genetic pool is featured in a movie or television series.  People go crazy over that breed as every family's Darla Sherman then demands to have one.  Opportunistic breeders pump out as many puppies as possible to meet the demand with out concern for the long-term health of the breed.  Reckless breeding amplifies whatever latent problems already existed in the breed and a tsunami of broken dogs overwhelms responsible breeders.

One-hundred and One Dalmatians.

Frazier.

She's not the only one to value a dog for nothing but its coat.

Lassie.

Air Bud (and before that Gerald Ford's "Liberty").

Rin Tin Tin.

The impact of the fad varies depending upon a number of factors: how robust was breed, how organized were the pre-fad enthusiasts, how long did the fad last.

The cleaning up of the genetic mess takes longer than the time it takes to create.  Never a robust breed, the best hope for the dalmatian is good old fashioned out-crossing.  In other words, introducing new genetic material through crossing dalmatians with pointers and then selectively breeding the offspring to get the best out of the old and the new.  Of course inbreeding fundamentalists resist the idea.

Better at resisting the fad as been the Jack Russel Terrier Club of America.  They list on their website all the reasons you do not want to own a Jack Russell Terrier, using preemption in an attempt to reduce the Jack Russell Terrier Rescue business.

Golden Retrievers have fewer health problems are reduced but it'll be work to find one that will hunt.

Eighty percent of the military's working dogs come from Europe and much of the rest from an internal breeding project designed to decrease that dependence.  So much for the working German Shepherd in America.

There is another kind of contrast effect, one that all dog enthusiasts can help promote: the well-trained, well-loved, actualized dog.  The contrast is not just in the look of the animal but how well it works with its owner whether that be navigating about town, hunting in the field, or helping raise the children.

You see them out there and they make me smile, but it requires investments harder to come by and harder quantify than money: time and skill.  The skills are not hard to acquire and the time is not overwhelming, but they are required.

That would be one dog fashion I would be able to get behind.

Settled Science, Settled Interests, and the Rugged Individual

The mainstream media is starting to catch on.  When it comes to so called settled science, follow the money.

One example, the dogma that saturated fat causes heart disease is crumbling.

A recent Cambridge University analysis of 76 studies involving more than 650,000 people concluded, “The current evidence does not clearly support guidelines that [recommend]… low consumption of total saturated fats.”

Yet the American Heart Association (AHA), in its most recent dietary guidelines, held fast to the idea that we must all eat low-fat diets for optimal heart health. It’s a stance that—at the very best—is controversial, and at worst is dead wrong. As a practicing cardiologist for more than three decades, I agree with the latter—it’s dead wrong.

Why does the AHA cling to recommendations that fly in the face of scientific evidence? What I discovered was both eye-opening and disturbing. The AHA not only ignored all the other risk factors for heart disease, but it appointed someone with ties to Big Food and bizarre scientific beliefs to lead the guideline-writing panel—just the type of thing that undermines the public’s confidence in the medical community.

Bad science does not become received wisdom via conspiracy.  At least it rarely requires a conspiracy.  It usually begins with an attitude of altruism.  A group of people believe x is a problem or threat.  The group begins an organization to battle x.  The organization hires a staff to carry their message to the populace as a whole.  All of the sudden the people who are hired find their livelihood, retirement savings, ability to pay the mortgage, and Junior's tuition dependent upon x being viewed as a threat.

It is easier to create an organization than kill it after it has lost its usefulness.  It is a straightforward task to create a bureaucracy but as interests are collected around it, it is very difficult to curtail.

Science is complicated.  Your body is a complex system.  Don't buy the simple answer and for Zeus' sake remember that every human organization, corporation, non-profit, government, or religious is run by homo sapiens and, as such, is prone to every incentive, pious and perverse, and every thinking error as any other group of human beings.

The American Heart Association is as likely to be leading you astray for profit as Monsanto, global warming scientists as big coal, the Catholic Church as the Quakers. The root problem is not the kind of organization but that it is a human organization.

If it is human a human institution, it is run by humans.  Some may be more humane, more efficient, more just, or more responsive than others, but they remain utterly human.  We are a tribal species and we watch out for our own.  If you think scientists are any different, well, this time is never different..

If the scientific method can curtail the tribal tendencies of scientists.  If society's implementation of that method is not working isn't working, than we have a problem bigger than global warming, heart health, belief in evolution, or any other individual issue.  It is a crisis of integrity rooted in settled interests.

Organizations as tribes: differing cultures, differing tones, differing languages but one humanity underlying them all.

Concentration of power, in the form of any settled interest is a threat to every kind of liberty, including academic.  Concentration of power is a function not of fact but of concentration of belief and belief suffers as much from fad and fashion as anything else human.

I love this riddle featured in HBO's Game of Thrones:

Varys - "Power is a curious thing, my lord. Are you fond of riddles?"
Tyrion - "Why? Am I about to hear one?"
Varys - "Three great men sit in a room, a king, a priest and the rich man. Between them stands a common sellsword. Each great man bids the sellsword kill the other two. Who lives? Who dies?"
Tyrion - "Depends on the sellsword"
Varys - "Does it? He's not the crown, no gold, no favor with the gods"
Tyrion - "He's got the sword, the power of live and death"
Varys - "But if the swordsman's who rule, why do we pretend kings hold all the power? When Ned Stark lost his head, who was truly responsible: Joffrey, the executioner, or something else?"
Tyrion - "I have decided I don't like riddles"

(later)

Varys - "Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?"
Tyrion - "It has crossed my mind a time or two. The king, the priest, the rich man-who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It's a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword."
Varys - "And yet he is no one. He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel."
Tyrion - "That piece of steel is the power of life and death."
Varys - "Just so . . . yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?"
Tyrion - "Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords."
Varys - "Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they? Whence came their swords? Why do they obey? Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor's Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or . . . another?"
Tyrion - "Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?"
Varys - "Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."
Tyrion - "So power is a mummer's trick?"
Varys - "A shadow on the wall, yet shadows can kill. And oft times a very small man can cast a very large shadow."
Tyrion - "Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I'd feel sad about it."

Belief drives us and belief is a very different thing from fact.  Belief about science drives us more than actual science.

Belief drove the Third Reich.  It drove Mao.  It inspired Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.  It was the strength of Abraham Lincoln.  Belief isn't bad.  It just is not science.  Well, there is that thing about the placebo effect I guess.

This is why it is important to never sign over the power of belief to another, not to a politician, not to a clergyman, not to a non-profit, not to a group of activists, nor a group of scientists.  Given too much trust, each will abuse it.

It is popular in some progressive circles to ridicule and dismiss belief in the rugged American individual.  So be it.  It is part myth, part truth, all belief.

But it is a myth that serves a purpose.  It is a belief that tempers all other beliefs and that makes it very valuable in my moral lexicon.  It tempers the tribalism that the species is so prone to act on.  It is the psychological tool that lowers the bar to abandon one tribe for another, to give up one set of settled beliefs earlier than they would otherwise.

In other words it is the power that gives the individual the ability to say, "I don't care what the experts say, I am calling it bullshit."

And that is a pretty important.

Sorry Neil deGrasse Tyson, only those with something to hide complain of "too many questions."

Don't Drown Your Food

Note the absence of abolitionist thinking.  Moderation in all things.  Just don't drown your food.

No fear

And exactly zero fears were given.

Do What You Love?

Confession, I do not particularly love my job.  It pays enough to support the my basic scheme of life and since I do not equate the damage done by too much sitting to the work related risks of other occupations, it is not destroying my body.  It is much better than mining coal or butchering chickens, but I do not love it. 

My consolation is that while it is anonymous and mostly boring and, on a rare occasion, involves bodily fluids, I do think it is "good work."  By that I mean it provides a service to the public.  I think I am good at it, providing care and attention where it is needed.  I want to do the job well, because I know the purpose of the work, because I know what harm could be done if I do not do it well.

I am thankful to see that there is starting to be some pushback against the "do what you love" advice to young career seekers that began sometime in my own adolescence and has, more recently, attained the status of received wisdom from on high.  I agree that such talk is elitist.  It depends upon unseen millions doing other nastier work to support the dream-seekers among us. 

I do not envy anyone their dreams, I still have one or two myself, yet I will not countenance dismissal of those who've got jobs which are dirty and difficult either. Who loves getting up in the morning and going to work butchering and cutting chicken so the suburbs have an endless supply of flash frozen skinless chicken breasts?  If it meant coming to America, however, some might say it is the cost of doing what they love: giving their children opportunity or freedom.

When it is all said and done the advice we should give students and dream-seekers is "moderation in all things."  Gordon Marino hits the nail on the head when he writes,

The faith that my likes and dislikes or our sense of meaning alone should decide what I do is part and parcel with the gospel of self-fulfillment. Philosophy has always been right to instruct that we can be as mistaken about our views on happiness as anything else. The same holds for the related notion of self-fulfillment. Suppose that true self-fulfillment comes in the form of developing into “a mature human being.” This is of course not to claim that we ought to avoid work that we love doing just because we love doing it. That would be absurd. For some, a happy harmony exists or develops in which they find pleasure in using their talents in a responsible, other-oriented way.

Do what you love?  Yes, but maybe part-time, perhaps as a hobby.  You full-time job might be the price you pay in order to live your scheme of life.

If it is your full-time occupation, however, make sure it is of genuine benefit to your fellow man.

Appreciating Working Animals

Dickin Medal winner, "Simon"

Britain gives military medals to animals, and there is a case to be made that America should do the same.

A little on the romantic side for my tastes, but I can't see any harm.

On the other side, there should probably be some recognition of the breeder and trainers who prepared the dog for service.  Currently 85% of our military dogs come from Europe. 

At least we get something out of NATO membership.

I mean, they could have been trying to make a quick buck of peddling genetic freaks to indulgent housewives, but instead they did the hard work of breeding and training for good work.

And that is a lot of work done in service of our fighting men and women and I am keen on any idea that will foster the value of breeding dogs for work.

That is why I love all the dog agility, even though I doubt I'll ever train or own an agility dog.

That is why I love to see people hiking, running, and otherwise living their life with their dog.

That is why I am thrilled to see a renaissance in people using hunting dogs for hunting, even for hunting antlers.

That is why I smile to see dogs being more purposefully bred for companionship and I thrill to see inventive minds finding new work for dogs.  I never would have thought to put them to work identifying high E. coli levels on beaches.

These are the values that will lead us away from supporting breeders who produce genetic freaks, born to suffer for no greater purpose than we can feel good about ourselves through spending inordinate amount of money on veterinary services. 

Your bulldog or pug may be cute, but your aesthetic choice is its suffering.  Listen to it trying to breath.  That was not an accident.  It was not just born that way.  It was made that way.

Your cheap, mass bred German Shepherd, produced by people out for a quick buck or whimsy, rather than the joy of working dogs, may not be able to walk without pain in a few years.  It did not just happen, the prevalence is a result of poor breeding practices.  Human actors are responsible and, if you paid for the dog, you are part of the chain of responsibility.

If you have a dog made broken, care for it the best you can.  Be prepared to put it down humanely when the time arrives.  Afterwards, whatever you do, don't pay a breeder for producing a freak or reward him for irresponsible

A dog bred for work is a dog bred for health.

breeding.  Do your homework before buying a puppy.  Ask for references.  Even if you're not planning on working your dog as such, find a breeder who produces dogs for work.  They are already producing animals for people who've thought ahead about how much they will invest in the dog in the years following purchase and have expectations regarding health.

You can pay early for quality genetics or later for veterinary services.  Which is more humane?  What will improve the stock of animals available to your grand-children? 

UC Santa Barbara Shooter

Captain Politically Incorrect:

So this 22-year old UC Santa Barbara shooter was driving around a $40,000 BMW.

No, I do not think the primary problem is that he was bullied, lack of inclusion, Hollywood, or that the law-abiding public is able to buy a firearm.

I am thinking he was a spoiled little child who never got introduced to life in the real world back when it might have done him some good.

Double take

Walking through the motel lobby a headline had me wondering, for an instant, if I'd been thrown into the twilight zone.

Agriculture is complicated

and the complication goes beyond "buying organic," shopping local, know your farmer, or any other quaint slogan.  The economy is complex and the economics of farming is wrapped up not only in the economics of eating but the biology of the soil and the whole biosphere.  Even the most intense and well-informed foodie oversimplifies what goes into sustainable agriculture because no one person can know and understand it all.  What we need is an appreciation of how whole systems, including those who are responding to very different incentives, must be engaged in that change.  Perhaps that is starting to happen.

Standing in Klaas’s fields, I saw how single-minded I had been. Yes, I was creating a market for local emmer wheat, but I wasn’t doing anything to support the recipe behind it. Championing Klaas’s wheat and only his wheat was tantamount to treating his farm like a grocery store. I was cherry-picking what I most wanted for my menu without supporting the whole farm. I am not the only one.

In celebrating the All-Stars of the farmers’ market — asparagus, heirloom tomatoes, emmer wheat — farm-to-table advocates are often guilty of ignoring a whole class of humbler crops that are required to produce the most delicious food.

and later...

It’s one thing for chefs to advocate cooking with the whole farm; it’s another thing to make these uncelebrated crops staples in ordinary kitchens. Bridging that divide will require a new network of regional processors and distributors.

Take beer, for example. The explosion in local microbreweries has meant a demand for local barley malt. A new malting facility near Klaas’s farm recently opened in response. He now earns 30 percent more selling barley for malt than he did selling it for animal feed. For other farmers, it’s a convincing incentive to diversify their grain crops. 

Investing in the right infrastructure means the difference between a farmer’s growing crops for cows or for cafeterias. It will take the shape of more local mills (for grains), canneries (for beans) and processors (for greens). As heretical as this may sound, farm-to-table needs to embrace a few more middlemen.

I'd drink to that.

The Great Debate

Whatever your politics, a crib sheet, in podcast form, to understand the best about the other side and perhaps the limits of your own.

Yuval Levin, author of The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas of Burke and Paine and their influence on the evolution of political philosophy. Levin outlines the differing approaches of the two thinkers to liberty, authority, and how reform and change should take place. Other topics discussed include Hayek's view of tradition, Cartesian rationalism, the moral high ground in politics, and how the "right an * Duration 1:08h, Published 5/26/14 6:30:00 AM * Episode Download Link (31 MB): http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2014/LevinBurke.mp3 * Podcast Feed: EconTalk (http://www.econlib.org/library/EconTalk.xml)

Being Disturbed is a Choice

Part Two of Six:

I keep six sentences written on a note card in my wallet.  The second reads,

Being disturbed is a choice. 

It doesn't feel like a choice though.  Just because a reaction is experienced as an automatic reflex, it does not follow that the reflex is required or that the chain of reactions at work is beyond our control.  Choice is involved in how we train ourselves to respond to the world.  Consider for a moment the following event,

I speak from experience when I say that the problem with pranks is that they do not always turn out the way we intend.  The man dressed as a scarecrow did not expect to be punched in the face.  More to the point we can see a disjunct between the immediate reaction of the man who punched him and the concern that flowed seconds later. 

The man who threw the punch was, by some set of circumstances unknown to us, trained to respond with an acute fight or flight response when taken by surprise.  He hits and he backs away.  As the reflex fades, concern and rationality flow back as he then runs to the man, shows concern, and even hugs him. The training can explain why he responded as he did.  If he wants to avoid doing it again, however, he will need to undertake to train himself in a different set of responses.

Our emotional reaction function in the same way.  They may feel automatic but they are the result of training.  Just as a young man is capable of tempering his fight or flight impulse so many of us are capable of training our responses to the world around us.  Whether or not we engage in that training is a choice.  It is our choice, if I may paraphrase the Apostle Paul, whether or not we take every thought captive and make it obedient to rationality.

My High School tennis coach was wont to yell, "Practice does not make perfect.  Practice makes permanent!"  His point being that experience alone does not lead to improved performance.  Performing with appropriate form leads to increased performance.  Performing with improper form leads to habit becoming more ingrained and more difficult to root out.

Physical response to stimuli and emotional response are not completely different things.  Both are functions of the brain as well as the body and those can be trained.  I've trained myself over the years to get outraged by certain predictable manifestations of incompetence in my workplace.

Even after I had some success in altering my expectations, there were still habits of frustration to overcome.  Inner calm is not something you find, it is something you work for or achieve.  It is much more like the backhand my coach attempted to teach us on the court than the sudden understanding that arrives six minutes after we hear a joke.  Learning respond calmly to a wide variety or unexpected situations requires even more training.

Keeping calm does not mean an individual does not react to a situation, it only means they act in a calm manner.  In the workplace I may still react to a co-workers, incompetence but not in a way I would have difficulty defending in Human Resources.  In the home I am an active parent, but do not react in a way that has me apoligize to my children later in the day.  If I am spooked at a prank, I do not react in such a way that puts me at risk of the charge of assault and battery.   It wasn't easy or necessarily straight-forward but it wasn't like I was giving up cigarettes, red meat, or cursing.  OK, maybe it was like the last two.


Our expectations of the universe are often flawed.  Our responses to the events around us are often based on flawed logic.  But if we keep to the habits that were formed while we lived under flawed logic, that too is a choice.  If I find myself disturbed by my spouse, my work, my dog, my children, or any other thing outside of my own control, I am confronted with the opportunity to ask myself, is my response appropriate?  Perhaps an action is called for, is there any reason that I should not do it calmly and with purpose?

Part Three: Dressing the Part

Canine morality? What about the humans?

On the one hand I am sympathetic to researchers who see echoes of morality in the way dogs play.

I also see how much projection takes place among so many dog owners who believe Fido feels every emotion in the same way that they do.  A few even project their religious preferences on their dogs.

Two humans will often disagree on both how to think about morality and how they feel in response to a set of events, and we are the same species.  I'll grant dogs, and many other mammals, a wide variety of emotions but they must be, to a varying degree of extent, alien to our own. 

Yet, if we keep all this in mind I still remember the day we brought home Maybelle and our coon hound at the time, Zeke, saw the new puppy he looked at us, looked at the puppy, looked at us and then promptly raised his leg and peed in the middle of the living room floor.







I never knew he cared.

Still, more harm is done treating our animals as if they interacted with the world in the same way we do than in adhering to basic principles of operant conditioning and remembering that however our dogs interact with the world, we have the larger frontal lobes and are responsible for greater insight. 

The degree to which canines experience emotion in the same way we do is an interesting academic problem.  Some will feel the need to integrate this knowledge into their choices what meat, if any, to eat.

But the real threat to pets is over-indulgence and short-term thinking on the part of their humans.

Yes, your dog will beg for food but that is not necessarily because he needs to eat.  Obesity is a problem not only for about one-third of America's human population but one-fourth of American dogs as well.  That is the result of the actions of human beings and it decreases the quality of life for animals who can not be expected to exercise self-control in relationship to their diet. 

Dogs probably experience emotions.  They may have something akin to a morality but I know humans do and therein are the problems we should really be addressing. 

People do not like to be told that they are killing their pet slowly, and feeling good about themselves while doing it, through over-feeding.  They like to be told that Fido loves them in the same way that they feel love.  They like to think of their dogs going to heaven, though it is hard to find evidence that the God of Jacob and Jesus cares nearly as much for them as the modern American.

But then again we do a lot of projecting of ourselves when it comes to the divine as well, don't we? 

Yorkshire Terrier

Socialization

"And she tore me up every time I heard her drawl, southern drawl."

Sparta is going to get a lot of extra time being out and about in the months to come.  It is easier to acclimate a puppy to lots of fun new experiences than to teach a grown dog that they are not as scary as they appear once the mind has already decided what is normal and what is cause for panic, agitation, and fear. 

So this last week Sparta got to take a walk through "Big Time Minneapolis."  She got to see the Mississippi for the first time and walk through a busy farmer's market where she was the center of attention from crazy dog ladies and enthusiastic toddlers alike. 

I continue to be surprised by how many people think she is an eight-week old Labrador Retriever.  Expectations really do influence what we see.

St. Anthony Falls

There is always time for brunch. 

Different, not scary, just different.

Flying into the weekend

on a steam powered aeroplane.

One in three freshwater lakes

is susceptible to an algae outbreak that could poison your dog. 

Dogs often fall prey to such bacterial outbreaks, according to a recent study led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Their penchant for drinking stagnant water or diving headlong into contaminated ponds makes them susceptible to accidental poisoning. Nearly 100 dogs were killed by cyanobacterial toxins between 2002 and 2012, according to the CDC’s survey of veterinary hospital records, news reports, and state-agency archives dating back to the 1920s. “It’s really important that the CDC is showing an interest,” says toxicology expert Val Beasley, a professor emeritus of comparative biosciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yet the CDC study offers a mere glimpse into this burgeoning dilemma.

One of our closest lakes is overwhelmed with blue-green algae.  Even twenty years ago this liberal arts major knew that he did not want to eat anything that came out of that body of water or spend any real time in it.  I am proud to discover that the Wisconsin DNR is not shying away from talking about the threat.

The mighty Mississippi, carrying everything to the Gulf of Mexico.

While algae blooms are part of the natural cycle and predate human intervention they have become more frequent with the advent of industrial agriculture but this need not be the case.  The underlying problem is simple, too many organic nutrients finding their way into water ways.  Increased grasslands between field and stream as well as more judicious use of fertilzers are two simple steps that could yield positive results with time.The obstacles include education (farmer's love their lakes and rivers too) and a farm policy that does not reward over-production of corn, a crop that requires heavy fertilization would be two common-sense places to begin. 

Still, until then, I wouldn't eat the fish and while a hunderd dogs a year is small potatoes compared to the number of automobile related dog deaths, I'd make sure that Fido, no matter how much she loves the water, is under your control so it is you who decide when and where she enjoys a summer swim.

How Stoic is Malcolm Reynolds?

Very, by my reckoning.

First some introductions, for the uninitiated, Malcom Reynolds is the fictional captain of a freighter named Serenity and her crew in the series television series Firefly and movie Serenity.

He is driven by his sense of virtue and an intense desire to call things by their right name.  He may not respect an occupation, but he can respect the person who does it.  He is largely unperturbed by the things that go on around him.  He is aware and responsive to the impact of his action on humanity.  Yes, he is a thief, but he will risk his life, livelihood, and reputation to restore stolen medication to a town that needs it.  His idea of the good life is flying under the radar of the authority which could take his life, love, and ship, but he regularly puts it at risk to save the life of a crew member or to speak truth to the power of the central government.

Operative: Are you willing to die for your beliefs?
 Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I am...
[they draw. Mal fires first, and the Operative is forced to take cover]
 Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: 'Course, that ain't exactly plan A.

Over the course of the series we see the sense of virtue manifest in Malcolm as compared to and contrast against the received morality of the Christian Shepherd Book.  Perhaps my favorite of their interactions arises late in the saga,

Shepherd Book: I killed the ship that killed us. Not very Christian.
 Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You did what was right.
 Shepherd Book: Coming from you that means - almost nothing. [grin]

Malcom, at other times, seems rudderless.  Strike that, he claims to be rudderless.

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I got no answers for you, Inara. I got no rudder. Wind blows northerly, I go north. That's who I am. Now, maybe that ain't a man to lead, but they have to follow. So you wanna tear me down... do it inside your own mind. I'm not trying to tear you down. But you fog things up. You always have. You spin me about. I wish like hell you was elsewhere.
Inara Serra: I was.

I would say he has a rudder, what he lacks is a destination.  Two very different things.

So call him an accidental stoic.  At least, I think he is one.  One that arrives at his philosophy of life through the things he has lost more than deep study.

If you have not watched the series, I highly recommend it.  It is available for streaming on Netflix.

Here's Johnny!

 

On May 22, 1992 I was getting ready to graduate high school, spend a few months working at a factory, and then head off to Illinois State University.  Other than a few months here and there, it also marked my final months of living in the only town I'd ever called "home."

Eyes on the future, I didn't really pay to much attention to end of the Carson era of late night television.  Late nights were for either being out running around or sleeping.  I hadn't been that interested in television for a couple of years. 

Did I miss anything?  Well, nothing I'd trade for what I did experience. 

Still, I hear Johnny's voice in my head time to time.  If you mention late night television, I don't think of Leno.  I only secondly think of Leno.  The first face to come to mind is Johnny Carson.

Pit Bull Terrier

When things have gone this far, what are Pitt Bull Terrier enthusiasts to do?

If I was not a half-crazy dog guy, I'd be ready to put restrictions on them as well.

When this is the image in the popular imagination, when your breed is already a metaphor for wanton violence, you've already lost the media war.  It is time for Plan D.

What is Plan D?  Capitulation on restrictions for breeding, increased taxes, and insurance costs in order to avoid breed bans.  Make Pit Bulls more expensive to own so that the popularity among the gangster crowd goes someplace else. 

It is probably the Doberman's turn again.  Maybe they'll embrace some irony and start sporting standard poodles.

It is easy for me to make jokes, I like my dogs small.  It doesn't matter if pound for pound a ground working terrier is the toughest dog around, we don't live life in a pound for pound world and small dogs do not the gangster image.

It is sad.  I have known some great pit bulls and some of my favorite people are pit bull enthusiasts but I don't see what there is to do but cut your losses.

What ever breed becomes the next focus for the tough guy crowd and the resulting public fear, they'd do well to listen to the hard to hear but valuable advice given over at Terrierman's Daily Dose. 

Eye Grabbing Body Paint

If you are looking at ways to add some flavor to your local county fair, you could take a page from China's Yunnan Province.

Non-Celiarc Gluten Senstitivity

It has long been on the list of "things in which I do not believe," but I am glad someone could get funding to do the actual research.  It is even better that my skepticism seems to have been warranted.  It almost restores my faith in the scientific community that the Doctor who published the study did so despite the fact that it contradicted his previous work.

Analyzing the data, Gibson found that each treatment diet, whether it included gluten or not, prompted subjects to report a worsening of gastrointestinal symptoms to similar degrees. Reported pain, bloating, nausea, and gas all increased over the baseline low-FODMAP diet. Even in the second experiment, when the placebo diet was identical to the baseline diet, subjects reported a worsening of symptoms! The data clearly indicated that a nocebo effect, the same reaction that prompts some people to get sick from wind turbines and wireless internet, was at work here. Patients reported gastrointestinal distress without any apparent physical cause. Gluten wasn't the culprit; the cause was likely psychological. Participants expected the diets to make them sick, and so they did. The finding led Gibson to the opposite conclusion of his 2011 research:

 So, sure, if you got nothing better to do with your money, buy that gluten free pasta but don't tell me about it.  I don't want to hear it.  It seems I've lost all my fool-suffering spirit.

Canine First Aid and Health Care

Patrick Burns over at Terrierman's Daily Dose has done a better job than I am able describing the perverse incentives at work in the field of veterinary care.  He also does wonderful job offering an outline of how to prepare to go to the vet to reduce the likelihood of being charged unnecessary fees or sold unneeded services. 

Five stars and four stars respectively.

Finding a publisher willing to take the liability risk of arming skeptical dog owners with contemporary veterinary advice, however, must be difficult due to the time it took me to find straightforward advice for an audience without a medical background.  Two books that do just that are How to Afford Veterinary Care without Mortgaging the Kids and Field Guide to Dog First Aid.

I ordered How to Afford Veterinary Care on the advice of the breeder from whom I bought Sparta.  My expectations were high and upon receiving my copy in the mail, I was initially disappointed.  Most chapters are only a page or two long and much of the advice was not aimed at someone like myself.  It seems primarily aimed at the overwrought dog owner who is likely to see their fur baby limping and rush it off immediately to the clinic.  The good news is that the book contains more.

How to Afford Veterinary Care also contains suggested dosages for the use of Ivermectin for both heartworm control and as a routine warmer, suggestions for dog safe pain relievers, long-term treatments for conditions such as chronically stiff joints and many other simple remedies for common problems.  There is also more than ample space for the addition of personal notes.  I am glad that I own it though I am also glad I bought it used for a reduced price.

The second book, Field Guide to Dog First Aid, in addition to instruction on how to care for many minor injuries, contains a lot of information every dog owner hopes they will not need but could very well save a dog' life during a serious emergency while in transport to an animal hospital.  The Field Guide is organized in such a way as to make it more difficult to read but this is only due to the large amount of information presented with as much brevity as possible.  A dog owner, especially anyone who works their dog or spends abundant time in the field with their dog, would do well to familiarize themselves with the contents as well as include the book itself in their first aid kit.

If the Universe is not Meeting Your Expectations,

I carry a note card in my wallet.  On it are six sentences, mostly drawn from the ancient stoics, that I seek to remember as I go through my day.  The first reads,

1.  If the universe is not meeting your expectations, it is not the universe's fault.

Let's face it, delusions can be comforting.  The idea struck me most abruptly when I worked with a guy of strong political views who when cornered by contrary facts or logic would respond, "Well, I prefer to believe..."At least he was self-aware enough to understand that he was basing his beliefs on preference rather than rationality.

The charm diminishes for each year out of college.

I would prefer to believe that I can dance, that does not make it so.  I would prefer to believe that I am as handsome as Robert Redford, that does not make it so.  I would prefer to believe that all children are above average and that there are no sexual predators in the world.  Again, belief makes none of these statements true, though there can be emotional comfort in believing a comforting myth but it does not change the underlying reality.

Fifteen years ago I read a story of a paraplegic who purchased a specially modified motorcycle.  He was unfamiliar with how the safety features worked and he failed to strap his legs securely in place.  Within a mile his riding boots had been thrown off and his legs were flapping in the wind, but he had to continue the twenty mile drive to his destination.  "It's not like I could hop off the bike and pick them up" he noted afterwards.  When he arrived at his destination his leg was badly burned from coming up against the exhaust pipe.  "Gee," he quipped, "that looks like it hurts."

While prefering to believe something can numb us to harsh realities, these beliefs are a disadvantage when they prevent us from responding to that which is doing harm. If we misread reality, reality does not go away but our misunderstanding can do us both physical harm but, more to the immediate point, emotional harm, as our expectations prove to be fundamentally misaligned.  Commenting upon the nature of reality we could not do much better than the science fiction author Philip K. Dick who wrote,

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

Or to revise the statement, that which exists in the midst of our disbelief is reality.  Our beliefs about a thing shape our expectations of it.  When our beliefs, and following them our expectations, conflict with "that which will not go away," the problem is not outside of us but within.   If the universe is not the way we would choose it to be, the problem is not with the universe.

If you find yourself disappointed in the world,  I, for one, am sympathetic to that feeling.  Been there, done thought, bought the t-shirt, as they say.  The path forward is simple in retrospect but difficult in the moment, alter your expectations, so they are more congruent with reality.  Listen to alternative points of view as to understand them, do not merely seek to rebut them or excuse yourself from their grasp. 

If your career is not working out like you planned, change your expectations of that career, and then decide whether to accept your current position or seek a new start.  Is your new car not bringing you as much joy as you anticipated?  Was it the fault of the car manufacturer or was your level of expectation unrealistic?  Relationships a bust?  What are you seeking from the other people?  Is that realistic?

If we would learn from our experiences we must treat our expectations of the universe as so many hypotheses.  The longer we hold onto bad ones, the less time we have to pursue those that more accurately reflect reality.

Treat with utmost respect your power for forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.  It enables you to learn from experience, to live in harmony with others, and to walk in the way of the gods.

Marcus Aurelius, The Emperor's Handbook 3.9



Part Two: Being Disturbed is a Choice.

Take a little time

for howlin' at the moon!

















All within excellence of humanity which is virtue.

Food Fundamentalism: Fats, Salts, and Sugar

Part One

When is science not science?  When it becomes a belief system adhered to and propagated by fundamentalists..

Why were Americans sold a basket of bad science?  For their own good.

Why did they buy it?  They were made afraid.

Facing bad science reporting on the impact of marijuana, even that bastion of left-of-center conventional wisdom National Public Radio seems to be confirm what members of the conservative rabble have suggested for decades, when science becomes news facts suffer.   

Why do dedicated scientists not push back against inaccurate science reporting?  Reporters, or more accurately their editors, are not in the business of publishing scholarly papers but of selling newspapers.  If you've clicked on a sensational link to regret it later, you know exactly what I mean.

Moreover bad science, once it gains a threshold of public support, becomes funded science.  If you are looking to run an experiment, someone has to pay for work to be done and it is easier to get money for  a familiar idea. 

Like the people who fund them, scientists are homo sapiens and as such are social creatures who work for organizations, made up of other social creatures.  Odds are those organizations, their employers whether corporate or public, are just as political as your employer.  Consequently scientists too tow the line, for the most part believing something is true because the preponderance of their peers believe it is true and "who am I" to question the consensus. 

The few who are anti-social enough to serve as gadflies are marginalized as "deniers."  They are betraying the received wisdom and must be punished.  We are a religious species whether that religion was handed down by Moses or Moses or Einstein.  Today we just drive them out of academia, a small improvement from the days when the citizens of Athens sentenced Socrates to drink Hemlock for corrupting the youth.

Max Plank wasn't too far from the truth when he wrote,

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

The renewal that comes by the process of death and rebirth is starting to be shown in the area of nutritional research.  More scientists are starting to openly admit, and newspapers are starting to publish, how little we know about the impact of diet on health. Admitting what we do not know is the first step in learning something new.

First there were the links made between saturated fat and heart disease in the 1950's and the promised salvation that would arise from eating more carbohydrates.  Now we learn of the costs of that advice not only impacted the rise of obesity and diabetes (as critics at the time predicted) but *perhaps* also the increase in cancer, Alzheimer's, and yes in some populations, even heart disease rates that we have seen since that time. 

Sevareid's Law rules supreme.

Later came the advice against consuming salt, even after strenuous exercise.  It is slowly being replaced by the knowledge that after decades of study the most we can say authoritatively is that the evidence is "inconsistent and contradictory."  Consuming the amount of salt recommended by the USDA and CDC may even reduce your life expectancy.  We do not know and it is time to admit we do not know. 

Likewise there is evidence that we should blame sugar, at least in part and for some, of the modern conditions that ail us.  This is just another hypothesis.  I do not mean that it should be treated as anything more than an alternative hypothesis,  It has not, however, resulted in the same policy attention as saturated fat and salt and caution against excess is at least as warrented in this final catagory of food stuff as the other two.    

The rationale and content changes but Puritanism never dies.

Hypothesis is often sold as fact.  Reason for caution is amplified to reason for fear.  Who wants to be the scientist who proposed a hypothesis?  Who wants to buy a newspaper that reads like a failing science magazine?  We all want to be the guy or gal who made a break through.  We all respond impulsively to fear.  Just because someone believes in himself, however, does not mean we all should.  Just because the news anchor responds with dramatic fear, this is not reason enough that we should be afraid. 

What do we know about nutrition?  Humans have been eating minimally processed foods since the invention of fire and farmed foods for around 12,000 years.  These diets contained meat and the primary oil was either animal lard or, in certain climates, olives.  The historical record for the impact of mass consumption of vegetable oils is less than one hundred years.  In fact it is the biggest change in our modern diet, and we made the change in the name of a settled science fact that was mere hypothesis. 

The puritanical mind, however, rationalized the change "for our own good." From the Inquisition to Mao, true believers always do what they do for the good of the people.

Moderation in all things is still good advice as is the axiom "the dose makes the poison."  I'm sure there are points where an individual consumes either too much or too little salt, fat, sugar, or anything else.  We can probably even make broad guidelines for the population as a whole, recognizing differences in age, activity level, as well as genetic inheritance.  Guidelines, however, are not the same thing as the puritanical scolding which passes for our current attitude.  There is such a thing as quality of life for which we as individuals should be allowed to make trade offs. 

Informing those individual decisions we should rely on what we really know about the present as opposed to what some policymakers fear or believe.  We elect government officials to lead and hire bureaucrats to implement and inform.  Neither has been charged to be my caretaker or nanny.  Those who would  shortcut debate for the sake of their definition of "the common good" are the worse kind of meddler.  When you give a puritan power, you will find yourself living in a theocracy which is an oppression to all but the most fanatical of believers.

Luckily, this form of fundamentalism is loosing power in policy circles even if it retains a strong hold on the popular imagination.  Unfortunately, there is another form of food fundamentalism seeking to take its place centered on equally unscientific fears of genetic modification and the flame of religious fervor burns bright and young in it. 

The Black Fly Song

I'll never go again

     to north Ontario.

Dog bites man

News of the mundane.

As good a day as any other

The most blunt recent reminder came, as is their habit, on my commute to work.

I was preparing to pass a semi truck when the left rear tire blew, sending the road alligator over my windshield, clearing it by about six inches.  Not the kind of experience one tells their mother about.

We are all just a few seconds, or less, from death.  The contemporary experience, and expectation, is of a slow unwinding at some point in our distant aged future.  We'll think about it when we are old; and we rarely think of ourselves as old.

If those are your expectations, I hope your expectations bear themselves out.  If so, you may have the opportunity to work with a death doula to help you manage the public and private processes at play.  Forty-four years old the woman profiled in the linked article hits upon an important insight: neither the Second World War, nor any other event before her birth, did her any direct harm and held no horror for her.  Fear of death had no hold on her before she was born, it will have no hold once she is dead.  Dreading death is more a function ego than rationality.

Sorry Joe Diffie, you can not go on being you, even when you're dead and gone because, well you're gone.  The lyrics of a pop song from the 1990's comes to mind (ironically it is a song about the birth of a child),

You don't have to go home but you can't stay here

Not all of us will be needing the services of a death doula, nursing home, or hospice.  Our own closing time can come suddenly.  We will stroke out without warning, die in a fiery car crash or we may face one of those rare deaths, going down in an aircraft, getting in the way of a bullet, or being torn apart by wild dogs.  If it is our aim to live a virtuous life through even the worse circumstances fate may deliver, without whining, crying, regrets, or pounding of the table, it is best to remember that one day you will die.  Today could be that day.  We should each be prepared to do it well.

Dying may not be our preference.  Avoiding death is a human desire and plays a foundational role in the monotheistic religions and it is the focus of some of our great art.  Death is inevitable, however, and iff dying in this moment is unavoidable, a temper tantrum will not make it any less so.  If I do go out in a car crash, I hope my last words are fitting and not vulgar.  If it comes down to betraying who I am, that scheme of life that I have adopted for myself in exchange for a couple of more years, I hope I stand firm to the rules I have laid out for myself.  If any of us are to avoid those temptations, we must own them, accept that we will meet that moment when we fade to black.

Today is a good day to die, or at least it is as good as any other.  Acceptance of the fact becomes a source of strength, anxiety arises from an attempt to deny it.  Dying becomes another thing to do, like raising children or cleaning the bathroom before the mother in law visits: if it must be done, or it appears as if it must be done, let it be done well.  Circumstances may provide a stay of execution, but there is no reprieve.

Rules

The rules that govern our social life together need to be carefully suited to meet the ends in question. 

An active duty soldier was subject to more rules than other citizens.  Handwashing rules to be followed in a hospital are not be appropriate to a home.  A home with small children will have different rules than one without.

The rules we make for ourselves operate in a similar fashion.  I have one life.  I have made a decision about the scheme I want to follow for that life.  I have named the game I will play in my years on earth so I develop the rules for my behavior to guide me toward winning that game.  The rules are a way of staying focused and putting aside distractions. 

Games, and the rules that govern them, can also help us maintain our own sanity and good humor in times of trial.  Children have much to teach us in this respect as evidenced by games of "Slug Bug" on long car trips or "Jinx" around the house.  Some members of the United States Navy seemed to have applied this lesson to submarine deployments.

Our aspirations for our own lives are revealed in the rules we apply to ourselves.  If you have not thought about the rules that govern your life, this does not mean that you do not have rules, only that you are playing a game someone else has named and rules they have named.  This is how we all start our lives but at some point we become responsible for ourselves and must decide whether or not to continue the game we were given or name our own.

Changing rules that do not work toward out own goals is just good sense.  These are the kinds of changes that mark progress.  Breaking rules, however, rarely grants the promised benefits.  The distinction includes a degree of discretion of the individual but there is a quick and dirty trick to get a good idea to hold ourselves accountable.  If you are negating a rule for momentary gain, you are probably breaking a rule and need to ask yourself difficult questions about the trade-off in question. 

Differences between people in the rules they keep are merely differences of opinion, regardless of whether such differences are minor or major, complimentary or a source of conflict. Is life lived better this way or that?  What is the nature of the good which is worth living for.  What cost are you willing to undergo in order to achieve that good? 

If you are willing to undertake the cost of smoking for the perceived benefit of the pleasure of the act or to avoid the cost of breaking the addiction, what is that to me?  I will make a decision for myself as to whether you will be allowed to smoke in my house or my car.  We may both be willing to kill for the perceived benefit of our nation.  There we share the same rule but differ in terms of loyalty and with deadly impact.  Regardless of the rule or people at questions, no one has an automatic claim on the other.  Each of us bears the cost as well as the benefits of our decisions.  There can be mistakes.  People do suffer, often unjustly.  There are winners and losers but there are no victims. 

It is my life that I am living and I am seeking ot live it well.  I will live it by my rules and you should live by the rules you have laid down to help you live well.  When they conflict, well those are the interesting days that give us fodder for the stories that we tell when we are old and looking back on life.  Even amidst those conflicts, if we are wise, we remember the lessons evidenced over and over again through out history but rather pointedly over the last few decades at the Tour de France.  Winning the race is not the same thing as living the life of a winner.  You can make a deal with a demon and still not get the result you think you bargained for.

Make your rules, live by them, die by them, and, if necessary, lose by them but so long as you are playing the same game, so long as the rules serve to guide you in your scheme of life, embrace them.

Failure to communicate

Maybe we need to take a step back and try this again later.

A warrior's drink

Perhaps it should be provided to nurses free of charge a couple of hours before beginning their shift?  As a population they seem to suffer disproportionately from constipation.

Seriously,If you desire to face the world with courage and to be a person of virtue, you do more getting rid of your own emotional baggage and preconceived notions than anything else.  One does not become brave, one ceases to fear death.  You do not become honest, but lose the need for deceit.  A man does not learn humility, but lets go of pride. 

If we are to progress, there will be a need to expel a fair amount of Sh*t.

And, yes, a good nurse is in need of as much skill, courage, integrity and virtue as any warrior, Klingon or otherwise.